Next up, I've been using the camel.usmarc file as the "file.dat" equivalent in all the examples. When I ran the first example, I got:
ActivePerl with ASP and ADO / Tobias Martinsson. ... Cross-platform Perl / Eric F. Johnson.
which confused me. Is the "title" of a book always considered the title AND
author?
Warning: IANAC[ataloger], but...
The 245 field ("Title statement") *must* have an $a subfield ("title" or "title proper" without subtitles, according to my copy of OCLC's Bibliographic Formats and Standards, 1993, which is normative only for WorldCat I believe). All other subfields, including $c ("remainder of title page transcription/statement of responsibility") are technically optional but should be used whenever applicable.
Basically, from my imperfect understanding, if you can find a statement of responsibility on the title page, then the $c subfield should be used. (Right?) This may be an editor, in which you'll have something like "$c edited by ...". Of course, it's not always obvious what should be considered the title page.
Or is the "author" and "statement of responsibility" the .. . . same thing?
Not exactly, since the statement of responsibility may designate an editor.
If there is a person (or more than one) responsible for the creation of the work, then their name (or other identifying phrase, e.g., "Author of 'Let's have a revolution!'") should go in a 100 field ("Main entry--personal name"). This excludes editors, translators. In practical terms, as I understand it, if their name is on the title page, then they also belong in 245 $a.
I suggest looking at MARC records for works that you own, comparing the MARC record with the title page etc. That should help you get a better feel for practical MARC usage more quickly than just reading documentation.
Paul.
-- Paul Hoffman :: Taubman Medical Library :: Univ. of Michigan [EMAIL PROTECTED] :: [EMAIL PROTECTED] :: http://www.nkuitse.com/
